The story of living in spite of melanoma, metastasis, vaccines, anti-PD-1, lung removal, and stereotactic radiation. The story of life with family and friends. {Posts under ~ Sew Chaotically, Travel Chaotically, and Chaotic Cookery also housed within! A girl's gotta have fun!}

About Me

Who am I? That is a question the rest of you could probably answer better than I. I am a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, pediatric nurse practitioner, cook, teacher, gardener, lover of words and music, occasional seamstress, and homemaker. I do have a couple of talents of questionable merit: I can create a decent meal in less than 30 minutes. I can feed and/or soothe almost any baby. And I can remember practically any song I've ever heard. For the rest, I'd rather those who know me decide.

Tuesday, October 27, 2015

The latest anti-oxidant controversy

This article from last year notes..."data from the much publicized Selenium and Vitamin E Cancer
Prevention Trial (SELECT), which sought to determine whether these
supplements could protect against the development of prostate cancer,
confirm that both antioxidants can be risky business for men. ...men receive no preventive benefit from either
selenium or vitamin E supplements; in fact, for certain men, these
supplements actually increased the risk for prostate cancer." A researcher interviewed noted, "Many people think that dietary supplements are helpful or at the least innocuous. This is not true."

"The cohort of 4856 men was culled from SELECT, the larger phase 3
placebo-controlled trial in which more than 35,000 men were randomized
to high-dose vitamin E (400 IU/day) and/or selenium (200 µg/day)
supplements. SELECT began in 2001 and was expected to run for 12
years, but it was stopped early, in 2008, after participants had been on
the supplements for an average of 5 years. The results demonstrated
that there was no protective effect from selenium and suggested that
vitamin E increased prostate cancer risk. Although
the use of the supplements stopped, the study actually continued. After
2 years of follow-up, the men who took vitamin E had a statistically
significant 17% increased risk for prostate cancer. Notably,
the rate of prostate cancer detection was higher in the groups that
received either supplement alone or a combination of the 2 than in the
placebo group (but the difference was significant only in the vitamin E
group)."

This article published October 23 reports...."though the data are preliminary, findings from a new study may shed some
light on why supplementing with antioxidants may be a bad idea for
patients with cancer." "Our data suggest cancer cells benefit more from antioxidants than do
normal cells," said lead author Sean Morrison, PhD, director of the
Children's Research Institute and Mary McDermott Cook Chair in Pediatric
Genetics at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. "It raised
the concern that people with cancer may want to think twice before they
supplement their diet with large doses of antioxidants."In their study, human melanoma cells taken from several patients were [grafted into mice] In mice that were given the antioxidant N-acetyl-cysteine, cancer
spread was accelerated. It significantly increased the frequency of
melanoma cells in the blood of some of the mice and significantly
increased metastatic disease burden in all of them. "At least in the mice, the antioxidants promoted the capacity of the cancer cells to spread and metastasize," he said.

The authors found that that metastasizing melanoma cells experience
very high levels of oxidative stress, which in turn leads to the death
of most of these cells. Oxidative stress therefore limits distant
metastasis by melanoma cells. But by administering antioxidants to the
mice, more of the metastasizing melanoma cells were able to survive and
increase the metastatic disease burden.Even though this study was
done in mice, Dr Morrison feels that the results can be extrapolated to
humans. "We have previously shown that the behavior of human melanomas
in mice are predictive of how melanoma behaves in humans. ... But it is important to remember that our study was performed in mice and not in actual human patients."

The report goes on to reference the report above as well as one in which patients with lung cancer were given selenium or not. Those who were given the supplement had a greater incidence of a second tumor, "but it was not statistically significant and therefore could have been due to chance."

Another study looked at [genetics]
to shed more light on which population of men who already have prostate
cancer might be most harmed by selenium. Among men with the AA
genotype, higher selenium levels were associated with a 40% reduced risk
of presenting with aggressive disease, whereas
among men with the V allele, higher selenium levels
were associated with an almost doubling of the risk for aggressive
disease. Phillip
Kantoff, MD, director of the Lank Center for Genitourinary Oncology,
and vice chair and chief, Division of Solid Tumor Oncology, Department
of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston,
Massachusetts, was the senior author on the genetic study. [When interviewed, he noted:] "The
study is interesting. There is a fair amount of data
supporting this. In fact, there are 2 follow-up studies of SELECT study
showing that over time the arms that got vitamin E or selenium had more
or more aggressive cancers.""The underlying mechanism is still not clear but this is one possible one," Dr Kantoff added.

Bottom line: I think there is much we don't understand about many things....and that certainly includes the behavior of cancer cells . I have NEVER been one to recommend boat loads of vitamins and supplements; just because a little is good doesn't mean a lot is better! As a rather brilliant nursing professor I had noted, "Americans have the most expensive urine in the world." Referencing the fact that most water soluble vitamins are simply excreted by the body and the money we paid for them is literally dollars down the drain. These reports as well as other previously existing data warn that supplements can also cause harm.If I were a man with prostate cancer, I certainly wouldn't be taking selenium and Vitamin E supplements. On the other hand, I see no need to panic. We have also long known that folks who eat a well balanced diet, heavy in fruits and vegetables, and get regular exercise, lead longer, healthier lives with less incidence of heart disease, cancer, and dementia than those who do otherwise. I see nothing scary in an orange. And, melanoma or no, that is the path I will continue to follow.

2 comments:

Like exercise, I participate in a diet full of fruits and vegetables because it makes me feel alive - more alive than the deep-fried horror food of my youth! I like drinks that promote re-hydration and energy but I'm also figuring out that coffee and water are probably superior at fulfilling those needs. Oh the nutritional re-assessment benefits of coming down with the cancer.